The main opposition Democratic United Party’s presidential candidate Rep. Moon Jae-in turned his eye to stepping up his policies, seemingly easing up on the recent contest against rival Ahn Cheol-soo over their candidacy merger.

The candidate especially focused on employment, one of his top priority election campaign slogans.

“Employment revolution is one of my key goals as a presidential candidate,” Moon said in a forum with economically dependent workers on Thursday.

“Considering that over 50 percent of the employees are irregular workers, it is important to promote the quality of the jobs, as well as to increase the general number of them.”

The term “economically dependent workers” refers to those who are legally classified as self-employed and thus excluded from labor benefits.

“Economic democratization will only be a blank slogan, unless we acknowledge these people’s worker status and their due rights,” Moon said.

The candidate also pledged to apply basic insurance, especially occupational health and safety insurance, to the neglected labor bracket.

By highlighting his key employment policy, Moon largely turned his attention away from the recent conflict with independent candidate Ahn over the candidate unification issue.

Moon and the DUP had urged Ahn to acquire party membership, or at least, to kick off a joint committee, as an initial step of discussing their potential merger.

Ahn’s camp, however, claimed that the related talks were premature and demanded that the DUP first demonstrate its sincerity for political reforms.

Faced with constant resistance from the non-party candidate, the DUP seemingly decided to ease its stance and concentrate on developing policies and expanding its leverage.

“Ahn’s policies are largely in line with Moon’s pledges,” said Moon’s spokesperson Rep. Jin Sung-joon on Thursday.

“We hope that the two camps will eventually cooperate to achieve political reform.”

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldmcorp.com)